The Caucasian, moved of liquor and pride of skin, had demanded the entire sidewalk.

He enforced his demands by shoving the obstructing Africans into the gutter.

The latter, recalling amendments to the organic law of the land favorable to folk of color, objected.

In the war that ensued, owing to an inequality of forces, the Caucasian--albeit a gallant soul--was given the bitter side of the argument.

Richard came upon them as he rounded a corner; the quartette at the time made a struggling, scrambling, cursing tangle, rolling about the sidewalk.
Being one in whom the race instinct ran powerfully, and who was not untainted of antipathies to red men and yellow men and black men and all men not wholly white, Richard did not pause to inquire the rights and the wrongs of the altercation.